Forget Sandy: The Outage that Affects Only You Matters the Most

September 24, 2014

After Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc up and down the East Coast in 2012, many businesses without contingency plans in place were forced to scramble as the area slowly returned to normalcy over the next several weeks. Facing unplanned downtime and weak business continuity plans, these companies incurred their fair share of unbudgeted expenses as they figured out how to maintain strong relationships with their customers.

Following the superstorm, disaster recovery providers jumped at the chance to illustrate the importance of having formidable business continuity plans in place.

An event like Sandy can certainly help you begin to think outside of the box while crafting your business’s contingency plans. But it’s important to remember that these kinds of major outages aren’t necessarily the events you should consider when thinking about your business continuity plans.

Here’s why: When Sandy struck, everyone was stuck at home for at least a few days. Pretty much all business ground to a standstill. In situations where everyone loses power, your customers won’t expect you to have it. And that means they’ll be flexible if you’re slow to respond.

With that in mind, let’s consider the kind of outage that really matters: the localized one that affects only you.

Imagine a scenario where all businesses and homes in the area have power, but some rookie technician dug up your fiber optic cables on accident and your Internet is down. Or maybe you show up one morning and the EPA says your office building is reporting high uranium levels and needs to be quarantined immediately.

In those kinds of completely unpredictable scenarios, your customers would have no reason to expect you to be offline. As a result, they very well might get frustrated if they’re unable to get in touch with you. On top of that, without a business continuity plan in place, localized outages can make it impossible to convert leads.

In order to be successful—always ready to make a sale and provide exemplary customer service—your business must be available.

Disaster recovery plans make sure your business doesn’t skip a beat in the event an outage occurs. And that’s why they are essential.